The Cranes were splendid types of the American missionary workers for they were human and companionable. I had found Cleveland of the same calibre. Like many other men I had an innate prejudice against the foreign church worker before I went to Africa. I left with a strong admiration for him, and with it a profound respect.
Kinshassa looked good to me when we arrived after four days' travelling, but I did not tarry long. I was relieved to find that I was in ample time to catch the August steamer at Matadi. It was at Kinshassa that I learned of the nominations of Cox and Harding for the Presidency, although the news was months old.
The morning after I reached Stanley Pool I boarded a special car on the historic narrow-gauge railway that runs from Kinshassa to Matadi. At the station I was glad to meet Major and Mrs. Wallace, who like myself were bound for home. I invited them to share my car and we pulled out. On this railway, as on all other Congo lines, the passengers provide their own food. The Wallaces had their servant whom I recognized as one of the staff at Alberta. Nelson still held the fort for me. Between us we mobilized an elaborate lunch fortified by fruit that we bought at one of the many stations where we halted.
We spent the night at the hotel at Thysville high in the mountains and where it was almost freezing cold. This place is named for General Albert Thys, who was attached to the colonial administration of King Leopold and who founded the Compagnie du Congo Pour le Commerce et l'Industrie, the "Queen-Dowager," as it is called, of all the Congo companies. His most enduring monument, however, is the Chemin de Fer du Congo Matadi-Stanley Pool. He felt with Stanley that there could be no development of the Congo without a railway between Matadi and Stanley Pool.
The necessity was apparent. At Matadi, which is about a hundred miles from the sea, navigation on the Congo River ceases because here begins a succession of cataracts that extend almost as far as Leopoldville. In the old days all merchandise had to be carried in sixty-pound loads to Stanley Pool on the heads of natives. The way is hard for it is up and down hill and traverses swamps and morasses. Every year ten thousand men literally died in their tracks. The human loss was only one detail of the larger loss of time.
Under the stimulating leadership of General Thys, the railway was started in 1890 and was opened for traffic eight and a half years later. Perhaps no railway in the world took such heavy toll. It is two hundred and fifty miles in length and every kilometer cost a white life and every meter a black one. Only the graves of the whites are marked. You can see the unending procession of headstones along the right of way. During its construction the project was bitterly assailed. The wiseacres contended that it was visionary, impracticable, and impossible. In this respect it suffered the same experience as all the other pioneering African railways and especially those of Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Uganda, and the Soudan.
The scenery between Thysville and Matadi is noble and inspiring. The track winds through grim highlands and along lovely valleys. The hills are rich with colour, and occasionally you can see a frightened antelope scurrying into cover in the woods. As you approach Matadi the landscape takes on a new and more rugged beauty. Almost before you realize it, you emerge from a curve in the mountains and the little town so intimately linked with Stanley's early trials as civilizer, lies before you.
Matadi is built on a solid piece of granite. The name is a version of the word matari which means rock. In certain parts of Africa the letter "r" is often substituted for "d." Stanley's native name was in reality "Bula Matari," but on account of the license that I have indicated he is more frequently known as "Bula Matadi," the title now bestowed on all officials in the Congo. It was at Matadi that Stanley received the designation because he blasted a road through the rocks with dynamite.
With its winding and mountainous streets and its polyglot population, Matadi is a picturesque spot. It is the goal of every official through the long years of his service in the bush for at this place he boards the steamer that takes him to Europe. This is the pleasant side of the picture. On the other hand, Matadi is where the incoming ocean traveller first sets foot on Congo soil. If it happens to be the wet season the foot is likely to be scorched for it is by common consent one of the hottest spots in all the universe. That well-known fable about frying an egg in the sun is an every-day reality here six months of the year.
Matadi is the administrative center of the Lower Congo railway which has extensive yards, repair-shops, and hospitals for whites and blacks. Nearby are the storage tanks and pumping station of the oil pipe line that extends from Matadi to Kinshassa. It was installed just before the Great War and has only been used for one shipment of fluid. With the outbreak of hostilities it was impossible to get petroleum. Now that peace has come, its operations will be resumed because it is planned to convert many of the Congo River steamers into oil-burners.